The FREE App Store?

This morning was the morning! We had 1300+ downloads of RxCalc during our FREE blowout. I found that a bit encouraging. Let me explain. We were overpriced in the eyes of a $0.99 culture. GREAT! We fixed our pricing problem, we're now a $0.99 application. That should translate to an uptick in sales, right? Wrong.

Once again, I'm caught off guard. I'm not sure what I expected, but I didn't expect what greeted me this morning. At first I was encouraged, I saw some double digit download numbers for three countries, GREAT! Then I took a closer look. The price for the first two countries, Japan and Australia, was $0.00, huh? Well, the App Store may take up to 48 hours to update all their databases after a price change. Ahhhh, that explains it. The stores in other countries haven't been updated yet, ok, let's move on.

So, the next highest total was the good ole USofA! We had a grand total of... drumroll please...

12

So maybe my thought that the App Store was a $0.99 economy is completely wrong. Maybe it's a $0.99 economy for entertainment titles?

I like pictures, so here's a chart of our sales, given our best day at $5.99 (five units), yesterday at $0.99 (17 units worldwide), and our FREE day (1365 units worldwide).

RxCalc will of course remain in the store, and we'll definitely drop a new version, hopefully soon, but these kinds of numbers could cause some to just give up, but writing iPhone Apps is a great hobby.

About this entry

Sadly, it's not as simple as just a price point. You have to not only offer more VALUE than all the other competing apps in the app store, but you have to find a way to market your app at the same time. With more than 75,000 apps, the only way someone will find your app is to do a search for exactly what your app does. They then see your and every other app that contains those same keywords. Most people will simply download the highest rated free version from the list and hope that's 'good enough'.

Unless you offer something so different and compelling compared to your free competitors AND can find a way to communicate that difference clearly and concisely (preferably outside of the app store), you're simply a victim of the app store design.

Thanks for the feedback, it's a first for any post related to our app.

Yep, we're well aware of our marketing issue, but the fact that we had 1300+ downloads when the app was free tells me people were aware of it, but don't want to pay for apps.

We are in a super niche market and getting the word out is terribly difficult.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

About

Rob Fahrni has been a Software Developer for 20 years. He's developed DOS, Windows, Linux, iPhone, and Palm based applications in C, C++, Objective-C/Cocoa, C#/ASP.Net, and, yes, even BASIC...
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